In China, landslide caught dozens of tourists

BEIJING - at least 100 tourists, including 38 Vietnamese citizens, were trapped in China's Northwest after a landslide cut a road in the midst of weeklong storms that have flooded rivers and triggered landslides, killing at least 86 people, State media said Saturday.

Tourists have caught Friday night in northwestern Gansu province after a landslide cut traffic, the official agency of China Xinhua News said. They were on their way to a nature reserve in Sichuan province, which has been the most affected by the storms, and the road repair work was underway in an effort to free them, according to the report.

Sichuan has reported at least 48 deaths by storm last week. A massive landslide that struck a picturesque resort outside the city of Dujiangyan in Sichuan on Wednesday killed 43 people, the ruling Communist Party's newspaper said on Saturday.

An entire hillside collapsed in clusters of cottages where city dwellers escape the summer heat, a survivor told Xinhua.

Floods in Sichuan was the worst in 50 years in some areas, with more than 220,000 people forced to evacuate.

Landslides and floods are common in the mountainous areas of China, killing hundreds of people every year, but in some areas the current floods are already the worst in the Middle century.

In the Northwestern Shaanxi Province, 23 people were killed in landslides or house collapses. At least 12 workers were killed in the North of Shanxi province when a violent storm collapsed a coal mine workshop unfinished. Three other people drowned in a car in Hebei province outside the capital.

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China Discovers Some Of The World's Oldest Writing

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BEIJING -- Archaeologists say they have discovered some of the world's oldest known primitive writing, dating back about 5,000 years, in eastern China, and some of the markings etched on broken axes resemble a modern Chinese character.

The inscriptions on artifacts found at a relic site south of Shanghai are about 1,400 years older than the oldest written Chinese language. Chinese scholars are divided over whether the markings are words or something simpler, but they say the finding will shed light on the origins of Chinese language and culture.

The oldest writing in the world is believed to be from Mesopotamia, dating back slightly more than 5,000 years. Chinese characters are believed to have been developed independently.

Inscriptions were found on more than 200 pieces dug out from the Neolithic-era Liangzhu relic site. The pieces are among thousands of fragments of ceramic, stone, jade, wood, ivory and bone excavated from the site between 2003 and 2006, lead archaeologist Xu Xinmin said.

The inscriptions have not been reviewed by experts outside the country, but a group of Chinese scholars on archaeology and ancient writing met last weekend in Zhejiang province to discuss the finding.

They agreed that the inscriptions are not enough to indicate a developed writing system, but Xu said they include evidence of words on two broken stone-ax pieces.

One of the pieces has six word-like shapes strung together to resemble a short sentence.

"They are different from the symbols we have seen in the past on artifacts," Xu said. "The shapes and the fact that they are in a sentence-like pattern indicate they are expressions of some meaning."

The six characters are arranged in a line, and three of them resemble the modern Chinese character for human beings. Each shape has two to five strokes.

"If five to six of them are strung together like a sentence, they are no longer symbols but words," said Cao Jinyan, a scholar on ancient writing at Hangzhou-based Zhejiang University. He said the markings should be considered hieroglyphics.

He said there are also stand-alone shapes with more strokes. "If you look at the composition, you will see they are more than symbols," Cao said.

But archaeologist Liu Zhao from Shanghai-based Fudan University warned that there was not sufficient material for any conclusion.

"I don't think they should be considered writing by the strictest definition," Liu said. "We do not have enough material to pin down the stage of those markings in the history of ancient writings."

For now, the Chinese scholars have agreed to call it primitive writing, a vague term that suggests the Liangzhu markings are somewhere between symbols and words.

The oldest known Chinese writing has been found on animal bones – known as oracle bones – dating to 3,600 years ago during the Shang dynasty.

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EXCLUSIVE: Snowden sought Booz Allen work to gather evidence about the NSA surveillance | South China Morning Post

Edward Snowden says the Post, he took a job at Booz Allen Hamilton contractor to collect evidence of the NSA surveillance program.

Read the full story in the South China Morning Post

China Tried To Convince North Korea To Stop Conducting Nuclear Tests: Source

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By Benjamin Kang Lim

BEIJING, June 4 (Reuters) - China told an envoy of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un that Pyongyang should stop conducting nuclear and missile tests, but the North showed little sign of heeding the request, said a source with knowledge of the talks held late last month.

Kim dispatched Choe Ryong-hae, vice chairman of the country's top military body, to explain North Korea's recent actions but he got a lukewarm reception from his Chinese hosts, said the source, who has close ties to Beijing and Pyongyang.

North Korea's 30-year-old leader took power in December 2011 and has carried out two long-range rocket launches and a nuclear weapons test since then. He also embarked on a months-long campaign of threats against South Korea and the United States.

"(North) Korea has not mellowed," said the source, who did not attend the meetings but has since spoken to both sides to which he has regular access.

Choe, nominally a general but with no known military experience, is the Korean People's Army's top ideologue. He showed up in Beijing in full military regalia, in contrast to his suited Chinese counterparts.

Experts have said the three-day visit was an attempt by North Korea to mend fences with its only major diplomatic ally, which has been critical of Pyongyang.

After the meetings, in which Choe eventually held talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping, North Korea promised to take "positive steps for peace" while China repeated its mantra of wanting "calm and restraint" on the Korean peninsula.

FOCUS ON ECONOMY, NORTH TOLD

Beijing tried to convince Pyongyang to stop its nuclear and missile tests, which "put China in a difficult position and are not conducive to (North) Korea", the source said. China advised North Korea to focus on rebuilding its ruined economy instead, something it has said before.

North Korea's recent actions drew international condemnation and put Beijing under pressure, especially from Washington, to rein in Pyongyang. It also helped reinforce an American strategy of rebalancing its security policies toward the Asia-Pacific.

China is North Korea's biggest trade partner and aid donor. Choe was shown a special enterprise zone during his visit, but he did not raise the issue of aid during his talks, the source added.

Asked if Pyongyang had agreed to halt nuclear tests, the source said that for the North: "It hinges on necessity."

North Korea has repeatedly said it will never abandon its nuclear weapons, calling them its "treasured sword".

The source did not say if Beijing spelt out any consequences should the North conduct further tests.

Choe met officials from the Chinese government, the military and ruling Communist Party.

China has grown increasingly frustrated with Pyongyang. It agreed to new U.N. sanctions after Pyongyang's latest nuclear test in February, and Chinese banks have curbed business with their North Korean counterparts in the wake of U.S. sanctions on the country's main foreign exchange bank.

A former senior U.S. official said Beijing's insistence that North Korea halt testing would be in line with recent signs it was running out of patience with Pyongyang.

"What I've heard from talking to Chinese officials and American officials who are talking to them is that top Chinese officials now emphasize that the principal goal is to terminate the nuclear weapons programme of North Korea," the ex-official said.

"Usually, in the past that's been buried (by the Chinese)."

Choe presented a hand-written letter from Kim to Xi. Chinese media gave no details of its contents at the time, but the source close to Pyongyang and Beijing described it as "terse".

Kim stressed in his letter that "the traditional friendship created by the older generation of revolutionary leaders should not waver at any time", said the source.

China has backed North Korea since Mao Zedong sent Chinese troops to bolster Communist forces under then North Korean leader Kim Il-sung - Kim Jong-un's grandfather - during the 1950-53 Korean war.

The nuclear and rocket tests and verbal threats were partly aimed at forcing the United States and South Korea to sign a permanent peace treaty with North Korea to replace the armistice agreement that ended that conflict, the source said.

HANDSHAKES, NOT HUGS

North Korea felt the reception Choe got was lukewarm, said the source. It was the most important visit to China by a North Korean delegation since the young Kim's uncle, a kingmaker among Pyongyang's ruling elite, visited Beijing in late 2012.

"There was no bear hug between Wang Jiarui and Choe when they met," the source noted, referring to the Chinese Communist Party's International Department minister, who is responsible for dealing with foreign political parties. Such greetings have been a tradition between North Korean and Chinese leaders, who once saw their relationship as "close as lips and teeth".

China has repeatedly urged North Korea to return to the so-called six-party talks, which are aimed at getting Pyongyang to give up its nuclear weapons.

Choe told the Chinese this format did not work. In 2009, Pyongyang said it would never return to the talks, which also included South Korea, the United States, Japan and Russia.

North Korea would instead seek bilateral talks with the various parties first, said the source, without elaborating.

Abandoning its nuclear weapons programme could not be a prerequisite for talks, Choe told his hosts.

That makes talks with Washington a non-starter since U.S. officials say North Korea must take meaningful steps on denuclearisation before there can be dialogue.

KIM FIRMLY IN CHARGE, CHINESE TOLD

Choe told his Chinese hosts that Kim had consolidated his power since the death of his father, Kim Jong-il, in December 2011, through the weapons tests and war threats that saw Pyongyang put its armed forces on alert this year.

There has been repeated speculation that the North's young leader had been challenged by some elements in the military, although these assessments have been impossible to verify given the closed nature of North Korea.

"Through mobilising troops, Kim Jong-un wanted to see who obeyed and who refused to obey his command," the source said.

Just under a year ago, Kim ousted Vice Marshal Ri Yong-ho, North Korea's leading military figure, as army chief of staff. A couple of days later North Korean media named Kim as marshal of the army.

"Many (officers) have been rounded up or sacked. Ri Yong-ho was arrested on counter-revolutionary crimes," the source said. He declined to say if Ri was jailed or executed.

"There had been some opposition to Kim Jong-un when he was named marshal. He has gotten rid of this." (Additional reporting by Matt Spetalnick in Washington. Writing by Dean Yates. Editing by David Chance and Mark Bendeich)

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Desmond Tutu: A Year for Human Rights in China

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This statement is cross posted on TheCommunity.com. Please go to this link to add your voice to the call.

From June 2013 to June 2014, the world will approach the 25th anniversary of China's crackdown in Tiananmen Square in 1989, when the Chinese military opened fire, killing thousands of students and other peaceful demonstrators.

Today there are calls from incoming President Xi Jinping for a "renaissance" in China, and the realization of the China dream. At the same time, many in the Chinese leadership and media have recognized that the dream for China cannot become a reality without social and political reform.

We have taken President Xi Jinping's statements as a small opportunity for hope that China, in expanding its role as a world power, will begin to throw off some of its more oppressive practices.

We find reason to hope that he and others in the Chinese leadership will hear the voices of ordinary citizens across the globe, when we say that the China dream will not and cannot be realized while its citizens are subject to "thought reform" through the oppressive laogai labor camps.

Since China's Cultural Revolution literally millions of Chinese citizens have been forced into slave labor camps for offenses related to thought and expression. In recent times these include increasing percentages of innocents, including lawyers who tried to defend their own rights and rights of others, ordinary public who tried to uphold their rights and were abducted and sent to jail to be persecuted; and those who have done nothing more than state their loyalty to their religious leader, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, participate in Christian religions which have not been "authorized" by the Communist Party, or practice Falun Gong, a spiritual meditation system based on the ancient traditions of China itself.

Reports from former inmates of the laogai camps detail prisoners living on the edge of starvation and exhaustion in infested and horrific environments, while being forced to produce commercial goods -- goods that we have unknowingly purchased in Western stores. Uncounted numbers of prisoners, credibly believed to be in the tens of thousands, have been executed and their organs harvested for sale -- a practice so despicable it is nearly beyond our comprehension.

As we approach this historic anniversary, today's world's leaders have the opportunity to distinguish themselves from leaders of the past who, for the sake of economic progress or in the name of "national security," have turned a blind eye to atrocities committed by Chinese leaders against their own citizenry. We ask our leaders to speak on our behalf to President Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party. Tell them what they already know -- that the dream of China can be realized only when its citizens' universal human rights and dignity are upheld and respected. And that the laogai system and the brutal repression of freedom of thought, conscience and speech, the most basic of human rights, will remain a festering sore on the China dream until it is addressed and removed.

God Bless You,

Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Chen Guangcheng

Get Alerts This statement is cross posted on TheCommunity.com. Please go to this link to add your voice to the call. From June 2013 to June 2014, the world will approach the 25th anniversary of China's crackdo... This statement is cross posted on TheCommunity.com. Please go to this link to add your voice to the call. From June 2013 to June 2014, the world will approach the 25th anniversary of China's crackdo...

Robert Scheer: China Benefits From Bush's Folly

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Imperialism doesn't pay. Of course, it never did for the common folk recruited to invade another country, or the natives they conquered. But still, the thought persists that occupying foreign lands -- particularly as in the case of Iraq, soaked in oil as well as blood -- is a winner.

True, Saddam Hussein's Iraq, with its nonexistent WMDs and virulent hostility to the religious fanatics that attacked us on 9/11, was a false target for a war on terror. And yes, a Shiite-run Iraq is now closely allied with co-religionists in Iran and Lebanon, whereas Hussein had once been our ally in containing the power of the ayatollahs. But "we" now control Iraq's vast oil reserves, some hawks will still argue in the manner of the idiot savant Paul Wolfowitz, who as then-deputy defense secretary promised that the oil would pay for the war. Only they, like he, have once again been proved wrong.

That myth of wealth following the flag can finally be put to rest with the report in Sunday's New York Times headlined "China Is Reaping Biggest Benefits of Iraq Oil Boom." What the Chinese have demonstrated is that in the modern world, to the conquerors do not go the spoils. The United States has spent well over $3 trillion on its Iraq War, while suffering and inflicting much mayhem. Yet it is the studiously neutral government of China that has most clearly benefited from George W. Bush's folly. Beijing refused to play the militarist's game but coolly picked up the winner's prize.

"Since the American-led invasion of 2003, Iraq has become one of the world's top oil producers," the Times reports, "and China is now its biggest customer." Almost half of Iraq's oil production already is shipped to China, and those once vilified commies, reincarnated as today's robber barons, are bidding for an even larger stake in Iraq's oil field production. The Cold War is indeed over, but China's red capitalists have won.

While the United States remains mired in the outdated task of establishing military hegemony through a vast network of advanced bases and sophisticated weaponry, the Chinese have emerged as the world's most nimble entrepreneurs, shrewdly covering their bets without the distraction of patriotic flag waving.

"We lost out," Bush Defense Department official Michael Makovsky admits to the Times. "The Chinese had nothing to do with the war, but from an economic standpoint, they are benefitting from it, and our Fifth Fleet and air forces are helping to assure their supply."

Actually, the Chinese had quite a bit to do with the war in that they profited from the interest on the loans they made that floated the U.S war debt. This debt will continue to increase as we remain stuck with the bill for that Fifth Fleet protecting the shipping lanes connecting Iraq's oil with China's ever expanding economy.

What all this underscores is that America, driven by an obsession with foreign enemies and burdened with a huge permanent military economy, lost its original sense of purpose, as outlined by George Washington in his Farewell Address:

"Harmony, liberal intercourse with all Nations, are recommended by policy, humanity and interest. But even our Commercial policy should hold an equal and impartial hand; neither seeking nor granting exclusive favors or preferences; consulting the natural course of things; diffusing and diversifying by gentle means the streams of commerce but forcing nothing."

Not exactly the tone of our policy toward China during the Cold War, or with Iraq more recently. Possessed of an armed forces power dwarfing all that came before, we have been drunk on the elixir of military confrontation. Ignoring the plea of Washington's farewell effort "to warn against the mischiefs of foreign Intrigue, to guard against the Impostures of pretended patriotism," we wallowed in that very imposture.

A nation born in revolt against the preoccupations of empire came to embrace foreign military conquest as its raison d'être. Particularly during the era of post 9/11 hysteria, the arrogance of unquestioned nationalist power has come to define our political culture. How ironic that the once ossified police state of communist China should now threaten us with a free market alternative.

The next time we feel the need to go to war -- Iran comes to mind -- we might be cautioned by Beijing's startling turnaround. This was the government that would never abandon its revolutionary politics, it was commonly said. And now an Iraq Oil Ministry official is quoted in the Times as saying of the Chinese: "They are practical people. They don't have anything to do with politics or religion. They just work and eat and sleep." Sounds like how we used to be.

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